Vigilia inconsciente. Análisis de un caso de estado vegetativo y diferentes modelos de toma de decisión

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Abstract

Resumen El presente artículo analiza el caso de un paciente en estado vegetativo que ―tras la solicitud de su familia de retirar la alimentación artificial― se presentó ante el Comité de Ética Asistencial del Hospital Universitario Vall d'Hebron, Barcelona. Partiendo de este caso, y de la revisión de otros casos mediáticos, se propone reflexionar sobre los diferentes modelos comúnmente aludidos para la toma de decisiones, haciendo hincapié en sus implicaciones éticas y limitaciones. El trabajo concluye con el análisis de un modelo de decisión deliberativo y compartido entre sanitarios y familiares que evita la omisión de las particularidades circunstanciales y relacionales de cada paciente.

Translated abstract

Abstract This article analyzes the case of a patient in a vegetative state that ―after the request of the family to withdraw artificial nutrition― was presented to the Ethics Committee of the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital, Barcelona. Starting from this case, and a review of some other media cases, it is intended to reflect on the different models commonly used in the decision-making process, emphasizing in its limitations and ethical implications. The paper concludes with the analysis of a deliberative and shared decision-making model that includes both, health care providers and family, thus avoiding the omission of circumstantial and relational characteristics of each patient.

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Making every word count for nonresponsive patients.

Lorina Naci, Adrian M. Owen (2013)

Despite the apparent absence of external signs of consciousness, a significant small proportion of patients with disorders of consciousness can respond to commands by willfully modulating their brain activity, even respond to yes or no questions, by performing mental imagery tasks. However, little is known about the mental life of such responsive patients, for example, with regard to whether they can have coherent thoughts or selectively maintain attention to specific events in their environment. The ability to selectively pay attention would provide evidence of a patient's preserved cognition and a method for brain-based communication, thus far untested with functional magnetic resonance imaging in this patient group. To test whether selective auditory attention can be used to detect conscious awareness and communicate with behaviorally nonresponsive patients. Case study performed in 3 patients with severe brain injury, 2 diagnosed as being in a minimally conscious state and 1 as being in a vegetative state. The patients constituted a convenience sample. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired as the patients were asked to selectively attend to auditory stimuli, thereby conveying their ability to follow commands and communicate. All patients demonstrated command following according to instructions. Two patients (1 in a minimally conscious state and 1 in a vegetative state) were also able to guide their attention to repeatedly communicate correct answers to binary (yes or no) questions. To our knowledge, we show for the first time with functional magnetic resonance imaging that behaviorally nonresponsive patients can use selective auditory attention to convey their ability to follow commands and communicate. One patient in a minimally conscious state was able to use attention to establish functional communication in the scanner, despite his inability to produce any communication responses in repeated bedside examinations. More important, 1 patient, who had been in a vegetative state for 12 years before the scanning and subsequent to it, was able to use attention to correctly communicate answers to several binary questions. The technique may be useful in establishing basic communication with patients who appear unresponsive to bedside examinations and cannot respond with existing neuroimaging methods.

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More dead than dead: perceptions of persons in the persistent vegetative state.

T Anne Knickman, Kurt Gray, M Wegner (2011)

Patients in persistent vegetative state (PVS) may be biologically alive, but these experiments indicate that people see PVS as a state curiously more dead than dead. Experiment 1 found that PVS patients were perceived to have less mental capacity than the dead. Experiment 2 explained this effect as an outgrowth of afterlife beliefs, and the tendency to focus on the bodies of PVS patients at the expense of their minds. Experiment 3 found that PVS is also perceived as "worse" than death: people deem early death better than being in PVS. These studies suggest that people perceive the minds of PVS patients as less valuable than those of the dead - ironically, this effect is especially robust for those high in religiosity. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.